McCain’s Dumb-Ass Ploy

The McCain campaign: sunk at the pier.

The above photo is of the Liberty ship SS Schenectady. It broke in half while sitting at the pier, most likely due to a phenomenon known to metallurgists as brittle fracture. It’s pretty amazing–metal will shatter like glass under certain conditions. But enough about that. I’m here to talk about John McCain’s latest dumbassery.

I speak, of course, of the continued running of TV ads saying that Obama was tight with, as they put it, “Terrorist William Ayers.” This hasn’t done anything for McCain’s standings in the polls, and it won’t. Why? Two reasons.

First: Nobody knows who the fuck William Ayers is. Sure, those of us who are dorks and keep up with politics all the time know. But what about all those “undecided” voters? Nope. Not a chance. Granted, most people didn’t know who William Horton was in 1988. I don’t say “Willie” because that’s not the name he went by. That was something the Bush campaign people came up with because it sounded scarier. Anyway, the ads about Horton worked because they tapped into a larger narrative we have in this country: Scary black man comin’ to get you. A shitty attack like that won’t stick unless it can plug into a larger narrative. But wait, you’re saying. Isn’t there an established storyline about terrorists, and aren’t they the new bogeymen? Well, you’re right, except for this:

Second: Spot the terrorist in the following lineup.

Give up?

Ha! It’s a trick question! They’re all terrorists! They are, of course, William Ayers, Timothy McVeigh, Osama bin Laden, Theodore Kaczynski, and Eric Rudolph. And they have all been responsible for terrorist acts. The reason Ayers is a free man is because the Feds fucked up the case against him.

The point is, we don’t think of white folks as “terrorists” in this country. Oh, no. Because of decades of coverage of “terrorism” as something that almost always happens in other places and is perpetrated by Kwazy Muzlimz, when most people in America hear the word “terrorist,” they think of this:

Not this:

Nice try, McCain campaign. But you just can’t undo thirty years of narrative with one thirty-second television ad. Your failboat is boarding in the first picture.

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14 thoughts on “McCain’s Dumb-Ass Ploy”

In think you are being a little unfair to Ayers. From:http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081008100729AAtPcKE
…Ayers is a classic example of an American who turned his life completely around. He is a highly respected community leader, and out of the millions of people who could have been chosen, he was Chicago’s “Citizen of the Year” in 1997. I would have been proud to know the guy! …

I had forgotten about Eric Rudolph (just blanked on him) and I had to look him up. In one of the articles I found, this was noted:
“Rudolph issued a rambling 11-page statement Wednesday after pleading guilty in Alabama and Georgia, declaring: “Abortion is murder. And when the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned and legitimized this practice, they forfeited their legitimacy and moral authority to govern.'”
I think I need to keep improving my writing. The last thing I want is someone to refer to me as “rambling” if I ever need to issue a statement. BTW, is “rambling” now code for “whack job rantings?”

Yeah, Dr. C, Ayers did turn his life around. Still, he did engage in acts that meet the definition of “terrorism” when he was younger. I’m not saying that his redemption isn’t important; I’m just using him to make the point that most Americans don’t consider what white folks do to be “terrorism.”

Jude, The saliant point, IMO, is that Ayers was no longer a “terrorist” when there was any association, however remote, with Obama. There is just no connection between Obama and terrorism and to continually suggest this is politics in its vilest and most extreme form. Certainly McCain’s association with Keating should be much more damning.

I just want to say that I think that John McCain will be heralded as a great and bold visionary when he retires ‘Cuda at the next debate and announces his new VP pick – a basket full of adorable kittens.
Chairman, McCain/Kittens 2008 “Not just our math is fuzzy”

Sorry, Dr. C, I just haven’t been clear enough in my writing.
I’m not saying that Obama’s association with Ayers is in any way a negative, or that Obama has ever actually associated with a terrorist. I’m saying that McCain’s attempt to link Obama to a “terrorist” are going to fail miserably because Ayers, no matter what he once did or is doing now, doesn’t match up to the definition most Americans have of “terrorist.” Even though this is a vile and disgusting smear, it’s not that big of a concern from a strategic standpoint because it just won’t work.